Poolhouse Bambino
by Falaphesian
Summary: It was the kind of clubhopping life where you could meet someone with a kind of ease and just as easily forget them. Yet even the forgetter wants to remember, every once in a while. [CloudSora, oneshot]


Here's a oneshot derived largely from a late-night phone conversation and an old song I got some time ago. ... ... ...WHAT CAN I SAY. I have a thing for Cloud/Sora and mass transit.

(x) (x) (x)

**Pool House Bambino**

Everything that you need to know about someone is painfully obvious within the first few moments of meeting them. The force with which they slam into you and send your punch hurtling towards your silk white shirt, the strain with which they smile, and the tenor in their voice when they apologize (if they even manage to remember to do so), all build up to the great climax of "Hey there, fucker, my name is--!" And, reveling in the limelight of an introduction, each and every person is apt to forget to put up some wall somewhere and contain a part of themselves they'd rather be kept in reserve.

"Hi, my name is-- --and my mother dropped me when I was small, my father used to threaten to throw away my dog if I didn't listen to him-- when I was in grade-school I was afraid of going down the slides because even though I was tiny I thought I'd get stuck, I thought I'd break every bone in my body when I jumped off the swing-set and it took me years-- _years_, I tell you-- just to overcome my fear of public restrooms, but I did it, I damn well _did_, and here I am today, talking to you for the first time ever and a fine, _fine_ how-do-you-do it is!"

When Cloud had first met Aerith, he had been blown away by her innocence, her charm, and her amazingly long hair. She was a sweet, long-legged thing with a head largely full of flower petals, good intentions, and empty air-- but damn, Cloud had never seen hair like that before. That braid could hang the girl that wore it, leave her dangling and stupid from a balcony, from a tree branch, from just about anything six feet off the ground. Yes, he was blown away by her nature and her purity and he figured that it was best he get to her before some low-life beat him to it.

When Sora had first met Kairi, the two of them had joined hands on the school playground-- Sora, a sniveling, snotty mess of a six-year-old and Kairi the clean and coordinated little girl with the matching socks and sundresses. "You cut that out!" she'd shrieked at Sora's puny classmates, thereby ending the playground-mulch one-man war. "You'd just better stop it right now or I'm gonna tell on _all_ of you!" And with that she had pulled the wood chips from Sora's mussed-up hair, piece by piece. And with every move and every contact, she told him all about herself and assured him from the beginning that they were going to be good, _good_ friends.

And that had been years ago and time had concealed everything that had been so apparent within the first meeting. Aerith became blindly devoted and Kairi became another limb that sprouted from Sora's hip and waved its arms and hands about in a sweet, friendly, and yet tragically irreversible manner. Cloud and Sora were certain they had problems all their own-- were dead certain they could bother their girlfriends as much as they bothered them-- yet they chose never to think about this fact too much.

You think about how annoying you are and they you often become more annoying in your efforts to lessen your rank on the annoying scale. A deliberate mess and a shame of a disaster, it is.

Regardless of all this, the relationships remained alive if for no _other_ reason than because those caught up in them could think of no _real_ reason as to why on Earth they would break it off. Each and every party involved contented themselves with the thought that it would be exactly the same with anyone else, that this was all just a part of the growth and the the age and the span of their love-- boring and ugly though it might be.

x x x

Sora slid into the cab where Kairi was just closing a compact and tucking it neatly into her purse. He acknowledged her with a smile-- she was pretty that evening-- pretty every evening-- dressed in cream and gold and looking every bit like some sort of rare vanilla ice cream topped with a smattering of strawberry-sauce-hair. She smiled at him-- this bright, beaming thing that threatened to blind him with every second he spent looking, so he averted his gaze. Instead, he talked.

"I had a dream about you last night. Where you became a stripper."

"..._What_!"

"It was really weird."

"_Weird_? Sora, for--" He heard her sigh, felt a puff of warm air hit his shoulder like the slap that never came. He felt her disappointment and was once again assured that they were even in the score of how much they bothered one another. "_Honestly_, Sora," she said. "What a greeting."

"What?"

"'Hi, Kairi! I dreamt you were a _stripper_!'"

"Well I_ did_."

"Well, cut it out. It's de_grading_."

There was an old pool house down by the harbor that had been shut down once and reawakened as a local night hub, _The Bambino_-- a joint that lived up to its childish name in that it played a mix of chart-toppers, a teeny-bopper blend of pop and light rock with a techno overbeat to sloppily tie it all together. Not one of Sora's favorite spots, but he'd picked the last time as to where they'd go, so it was rightfully Kairi's turn. They operated like that-- turns and flipped-coins, spinned bottles and passed notes. Early twenties and still in a high school relationship.

The cab let them off and Sora passed the driver a ten, told him to keep the change-- grinned while he said it, made like he was having the time of his life out with his girl. It wasn't bad, he told himself, to sometimes feel like staying at home. A video game and a tub of ice cream. Chocolate and caramel and sprinkles and whipped cream. None of this frozen yogurt Kairi was obsessed with. Sora wanted it rich in cream and sugar-- enough to send him off on a high for hours on end. But Kairi slid her hand into Sora's and Sora resigned to a chipper grin, a simple, "Ready then?"

"As always!"

Into the fray and one hell of a hay-day in a payback kind of way. The room was relatively packed, no one looking really hardcore, no one looking really intense, The bubble-gum kind of crowd-- Kairi's kind of crowd-- all of them aspiring models, singers, or low-budget actresses. Attached to their arms and their hips were their boys, tall and silent and each occasionally sharing glances that spoke thousands of words and hundreds of meanings in just a few split seconds.

_'Dear lord, but do I wish I was somewhere else. How about you, buddy?'_

Sora joined the ranks of the willing boyfriends, tacked onto Kairi's side as she joked and jibed with her girls, a laugh, a flirt, and a delightful little tease. But she was a good girl, Sora had to give her that. She'd never been a bad girl. Not once in her goddamn life had she done anything that could truly be called dreadful. Yet it was for that fact alone that Sora resented her just a little bit. It was always _him_ asking for forgiveness-- _him_ fucking up-- and _her_ playing the part of the patron saint of forgiveness and all that is good and beautiful in the world.

It wouldn't have been so hard to call it quits if she had been a terrible girl, now, would it?

That was how Sora bailed, eventually. Not permanently. Not abandoned, per se. Just made a break for the bar and proceeded to hide there and drown his confusion and momentary angst in a tall, frothy glass of foul-tasting beer. He listened to the finale of one DJ and watched as they switched over to the next-- flawless and precise, without missing a single digitally-enhanced beat. The next mixer took up her position, headphones around her neck and records in hand, a new mix pounding through the speakers. It was a stomp-worthy tune, a hand-banging, chant-along thing that rang between your ears and hung there-- repeated itself and screamed itself silly.

Oddly enough, Sora found himself smiling, nodding, feeling much more at ease in the place than he had with the last DJ up there making some noise. Sipping at his drink with distaste, he eyed the people around him and his gaze came to rest on Cloud. Kairi came over a moment later, shanghaied Sora into buying her a drink-- some fluffy pink thing that she knocked back with a delighted smile and a sweet kiss to the cheek-- and then followed his gaze to the quiet blonde.

"That's Aerith's boyfriend," she said. And then she was gone. Back, Sora assumed, with her girls. Back with the man's girl. Back being his girl. He sighed. The ownership thing was too complicated all of a sudden. Just who owned _who_ anyway?

In an effort to make conversation, Sora scooted down a couple barstools and sidled up beside Cloud. His elbows rested back against the counter. He watched Kairi out there laughing and dancing it up with her friends. He listened to the one song-- the stomper, chanter, head-banger-- segued into another and he said to his hopefully-friendly stranger, "That one wasn't half bad."

"What?" Cloud asked. Couldn't hear. Too loud. Too much stomping, chanting, head-banging.

"I said that last mix wasn't so bad!"

"Oh. No, it wasn't, was it?"

"Is that your girl?" Sora nodded his head in the direction of Kairi and her friends. Not exactly specific, but he figured that one of the dancing girls had to be his. And really, Sora didn't particularly care if he knew exactly which of them was the magical Aerith. He was just talking for the sake of talking.

"Yeah," said Cloud.

"She's pretty."

"Thanks." Cloud mimicked the motion, the vague kind of gesture, and Sora had to smile when he caught the humor in the question-- "That yours?"

"Yep."

"Cute..."

"Yeah..."

"Sorry, this isn't exactly my thing. You know... the whole..." Cloud's hand flipped through the air, a lazy arc as he fought for and lost the word. The thing. "Um. The whole thing."

"The pop thing or the club thing?"

"Both, really."

"Yeah, well, this isn't exactly a great spot. It feels like an under-twenty-one kind of place." Sora flicked a finger towards his half-empty glass, the light and airy chime of sound lost in the dull roar of speech and music and a very thin yet very real fog of alcohol. "Even their drinks taste a little watery," Sora told him.

"I'll give you that."

"...You've really never been in places like this before, huh?"

"Huh. That obvious?"

"You have it written on your forehead in Sharpie. Backwards."

"_Great_ to hear."

When Sora first met Cloud that evening, he was startled into thinking that he'd actually found someone eerily similar to him. Well, to some _part_ of him, at least. Aside from the brilliant boy with the brilliant smiles was the more thoughtful Sora that rarely surfaced, but whom he loved to bits and pieces. That other Sora. Cloud somehow unknowingly punched a hole wide open in the physical, _visible_ Sora and tore the inside, _thoughtful_ Sora right on out. Raw and bleeding and stupid like a newborn baby.

When Cloud first met Sora that evening, he was pleasantly surprised to find that the younger man reminded him greatly of brownies. ...Really, this was bit peculiar, seeing as Cloud was never really one to wax poetic on much of _anyone_, and if he was to wax poetic on much of _anything_, it most certainly did not involve brownies. But there Sora was, all eager and all warm and all ridiculously alive and good and real. Cloud could understand the hair being like a brownie-- he'd cut himself that much of a break. But he never did manage to figure out why Sora's eyes reminded him of brownies, too. It left Cloud's brain raw and bleeding and stupid like a skinned goat up for sacrifice.

One dead baby and one dead goat later, Sora was slouched further back against the bar counter-- not necessarily drunk off his ass, but simply bored straight to hell and back. He was getting the same impression from Cloud-- there was only so much of one crowd they could take and they'd just about reached the limit, the max-fill level for that evening. Head-banging music or no, the two of them would eventually find them banging their heads against the damn counter unless they made a run for it.

Sora took a risk right then. "Say, do you like riding the metro?" he asked.

Cloud thought about it for a moment, as though he'd never really bothered to question whether he liked the metro or not-- the metro was the metro and asking whether he liked it or not was really neither here nor there. It was a way to get around, a way to get out. "It's alright, I guess."

"Whaddya say we leave?" Sora leaned a little closer, smiled a little wider. "And we'll go people watching. We'll take the metro."

"Won't she get angry?" Cloud was talking about Kairi, still out there on the dance floor, still shining and beautiful in her cream and gold and youth and pleasure. She was having fun and-- in some corner of her head-- she probably felt bad that Sora wasn't. And-- Sora was reasonably sure-- she would do her absolute best to make it up to him in the aftermath, in the dark of some apartment somewhere.

"Will _she_?" Sora was talking about Aerith, still somewhere out there on the dance floor (though really, he still had no idea who the girl actually was, so he couldn't say much about her.) Probably as beautiful as Kairi. Probably as sweet.

"Probably not. Not too much, at least. I don't think so."

"Then we're set." Sliding off the bar stool, Sora made for the door, suddenly confident, suddenly thoughtful and giddy and alive all at once. "Come on! This place is driving me _cra-zy_," he said.

They left the head-bangers and the club kids to their own devices, making a beeline for the nearest metro stop and snagging the next line that came up, neither bothering to look at where they were going. There were only a few people in the car they boarded, seeing as the 11 o' clock hour was never a big one for the sport of people-watching-- yet Sora and Cloud took up their positions in a content sort of silence, taking in the space around them. The art of observation at its finest.

By the door was a teenaged girl-- jet black hair down around her shoulders and eye makeup stretching from her lashes to her brows in one thick-yet-artful smudge. She glared at the floor and toed the ground with one thick black army boot, skinny arms wrapped around a standing pole, though there were plenty of empty seats in the car.

On one bench was a couple-- a girl and a boy-- the girl fast asleep on her boyfriend's shoulder, oblivious to the rattle and hum of machinery around her, perfectly within her own sleepy, trusting ease of life. And her boy smiled and held her a little closer, perfectly within his own waking, trusting ease of life.

A middle-aged man in a suit and tie, a young woman examining a rip in her stockings, some teeny-bopper boys playing it cool and loud in the back with rude jokes and ruder commentary on their friends at school. One by one they left, silent and sure and steady as they played it off like any other day.

When the car was empty, neither Cloud nor Sora made any real motion to move.

_I'm okay here, _Sora thought._ I'm okay here and so is he. I don't want to get away. He's not annoying me and I'm not annoying him and we're not speaking and it's not awkward. It's just okay. It's maybe more than okay. It's maybe alright._

They made small talk and a half-hour ticked by slowly. They covered the past-- how they met their girls, how they grew tired of their girls, how they felt so goddamn awful whenever they so much as _thought_ about their girls-- their poor goddamn girls who deserved so much better, so much love. They covered the present-- where they were in life, who they'd probably stepped on to get there and who they were bound to step on the next day. And when it came to the future, Cloud sighed-- flung his arms back on the top edge of the seat and didn't seem to mind when his hand came to rest against Sora's collarbone.

"Actually, I was thinking about leaving," Cloud said.

"Why?"

"I don't like it here much. There's just really..." He sighed then, pressed his head back against the seat and closed his eyes. He shrugged a little, the motion causing his hand to brush against Sora's skin. Neither mentioned it. Neither flinched. "I don't know--" was all Cloud said. "I don't know, It just doesn't do much for me."

"You shouldn't _leave_ though. That won't make it any better."

"You tell me one reason to stay and I'll do it. One good reason."

"What about that girlfriend of yours?"

"If I asked her to, she'd go with me. And if I didn't ask her to, she'd stay. And we might keep in touch, but... That's not a good reason."

"Job?"

"Could get one wherever I landed. Besides, the real reason I don't like the city is because you can't see the stars. The lights never go out, so no one ever sees the sky. Hell, no one even bothers to _look_, anyway."

"Well _sure_ you can see the stars! The thing about the city is that all the stars have fallen down and they _are_ the lights. Haven't you ever thought that? You know. Looking out the window at night and they're all there and spread out like they are. All glowing in the dark. Isn't that good enough?"

"No." Cloud smiled a bit and when Sora turned his head to the side just so, he could see it. See it as Cloud continued with an almost lazy tone, the kind that implied that he'd made up his mind long ago and that Sora's pithy little efforts really meant nothing in the long run. Still, that didn't keep the sincerity from squeezing in there alongside-- a lazy sincerity, that's what it was, right when Cloud said "I wish it was, but it's not. You saying that is something else though." His hand flicked forward and nudged the back of Sora's head playfully. Sora thought he heard a soft chuckle-- knew for certain he heard-- "I wouldn't have expected to hear it put like that. It almost makes it alright. But again, it's just not good enough. And I _wish_ it was."

"Well I--"

The doors slid open once more and a tiny shadow flitted across the step before the figure slunk inside-- all stealth, all daring. Sora stared. Cloud stared.

The coyote regarded them with a rather blank and passive sort of gaze and made himself at home on the seat opposite them, tail curled around his paws and pointed nose tucked possessively beneath it.

It occurred to Sora that getting someone's attention might be a good idea. The animal could have rabies, really. And while he was sure that foaming at the mouth would get him a few points on the coolness scale, he _wasn't_ really sure he was ready to face all the nasty side-effects that came with that mouth-foamy disease. Unconsciously, he scooted closer to Cloud. Because the coyote's natural instinct would say to go for Sora-- the little sickly looking prey-- before targeting Cloud.

Damn Sora and his little sickly luck.

"This... is my stop," Cloud said. He was half out of his seat before the coyote leapt up and bolted for the door, startled by the movement and worried for its life. Sora and Cloud heard the click of claws on the concrete, the brush of a tail against the metal door, and the animal was on the platform, across the platform, running for all it was worth. There was a man pushing a trolley full of luggage-- he never saw the wild dog and never batted an eye when the animal was hit dead on and yelped and jerked away with a half snarl, half howl.

For a moment, Sora watched in horror as the coyote teetered on the edge, dazed from the strike and reeling with an animal's rage. And-- for a moment-- he almost had hope as the dog regained its senses, shook its head, and made to clear out of there as fast as it could. With a single, terrified leap, it almost cleared the inset where the parallel tracks lay.

Almost.

And it never saw the metro car coming.

With a splat and a thud that could barely be heard over the electric groan of the incoming line, the dog was done. The doors closed and the metro pulled out, having dropped off its charge and remaining oblivious to its sudden death.

Meanwhile, Sora and Cloud remained absolutely stock still as the car rattled on-- Cloud still half out of his chair and Sora still staring with his mouth just slightly agape. "_That_," he said, "is why you shouldn't go."

"Why's that?"

"You could've been that coyote."

"...Poor bastard."

"Rest in peace." Sora nodded sagely, slowly, sadly. He turned to Cloud and suddenly felt like bawling, so he had to turn away again and get it together before he asked: "Think coyotes go to heaven?"

"Isn't it in that movie? You know. _All Dogs Go To Heaven_?"

"...Do coyotes count as dogs?"

"Sure they do. Probably more of a dog than a beagle or something. More of a _real_ dog, at any rate."

"...But... _that's_ why you shouldn't go. If you'd even left this car, look what woulda happened to you."

"Gruesome, I'll admit."

"Terrifying."

"Simply dreadful."

"Godawful."

"You said it."

"Sure did." Sora no longer felt like bawling-- a major relief on his part, seeing as he had a sneaking suspicion that Cloud wasn't the type of person who would know what to do with a wailing ball of Sora. He felt Cloud's hand against his neck, the contact simple and warm and soothing. He smiled, said, "You know what else I say?"

"Hm?"

"Well, I'll tell you what else I _would_ say. I _would_ say that we should make a get-out like that coyote. We can get off at this stop--" The metro line, which had drew to a stop some moments before, promptly closed its doors and picked up speed again, just to mock Sora. "...Okay, the _next_ stop-- we can get off and we can leave this joint and forget about it. ...Yeah. I _would_ say that, but I'm not going to."

Cloud's head tipped to one side just slightly, clearly inquiring something along the lines of, '_Well, if that's not what you're _really_ going to say, then what is it already?'_

"What I'm _going_ to say is that we-- you and me-- should have met up twelve years ago."

Cloud's posture was relaxed, not tense, which Sora could only take as a good sign. He'd already spilled half his life to the stranger anyway-- no harm came from making a total fool of oneself in two hours, after all. And when Cloud's response came, it was slow and easy and simple. "Twelve years is a long time," he said thoughtfully.

"Exactly my point." Seemingly satisfied with this, Sora leaned back, his head tipping further against Cloud's hand. If he noticed the way Cloud's fingers curled around his hair, he said nothing. He said nothing for a long moment as the two sat side by side and watched the city lights fly past-- each of them probably wondering if they really looked all that much like stars, and each of them probably coming to the sorry conclusion of: 'no.'

"But now that I think about it," Sora murmured, "--no, that wouldn't work. In fact, none of it would work because if I knew you for twelve years, I wouldn't be able to stand you right this second. I wouldn't be here in this metro car with you right this _second_ because I'd be so sick of you." He turned his head to the side. His cheek came to rest on Cloud's hand. "You see what I'm saying, right?"

"I do."

"Good. So you understand me. I knew you would." Sora smiled and the motion of the car and the movement on his face brushed him further against Cloud's open palm. Eyes closed, Sora sighed-- said, "That's why we can never see each other again. Because then we might get tired of each other and then where would we be? We just can't see each other again. Isn't that _tragic_?"

"Very."

"Because if I _saw_ you again, I'd have to think about everything I'm telling you right here, right now. I'd have to feel stupid again-- because I'd have to regret talking like a huge moron. This way, we can say and do almost anything and get away with it." His eyes opened, his eyes locked onto Cloud's. They were similar, he realized, in that they both had blue eyes. Some part of his brain wondered why he hadn't realized this before, but the question was pushed aside as Sora felt his lips moving on their own accord, forming the repeated words-- "Because we don't _ever_ have to see each other again."

"We can do almost anything, huh?"

"Anything at all."

That was about the time when Cloud's back was forcefully thrown against the plastic bench, Sora's fingers digging into his shoulders, Sora's weight pressing down on his lap. Sora's mouth insistently pressing against his own.

SLAM.

Sora was thrown back down against the plastic, Cloud poised over him and devouring his mouth with a certain ferocity that Sora wasn't quite sure how to handle. He fought back with nails and teeth and frustrated groans-- he clawed his way under Cloud's shirt and felt a murdered button hit him in the nose. Right before Cloud tipped his head to the side, breath burning against his throat, mouth open and saying, "Anything?"

SLAM.

There was a sharp turn that Cloud figured he should've expected-- hell, he'd ridden the damn metro enough to know the lines forwards and backwards. But there he was, sprawled on his back on the car's floor, carpet itchy and filthy against his skin, Sora cocky and superior and lingering over his chest with a 'haha, I win, fucker' kind of expression. Again, all Cloud could think of was brownies as Sora bent down towards his neck and--_ bite._ "_Shit_!"

SLAM.

Sora was thrown, pinned to the ground, pulse rocketing and eyes glaring up at Cloud above him-- only for a moment-- a half of a moment-- before Cloud was down again, teasing Sora's shirt up his stomach and digging his nails into Sora's sides and leaving marks and scratches to match those on his own back. His mouth found Sora's naval and moved up to ribs and muscle and skin paling from a summer some months dead. He thought to look up right then and saw Sora-- head tilted to one side, eyes squeezed shut, panting and swearing and mouthing something that Cloud couldn't catch and couldn't read.

SLAM.

The two of them were sent rolling beneath the nearest bench, colliding with the metal and plastic and Cloud was on top and Sora was growling and saying some rather rude things-- "_Fuck_ you-- get the _hell_ off-- It's _not_--" and Cloud was hissing: "Not _what_?"

"_Anything_, okay? This isn't _anything_. Remember."

"We're not going that far."

"No, we're not."

"Okay then."

"Okay."

Cloud blinked upon hearing his shirt rip. "_Fucker_."

"Oops."

They stayed like that, willingly trapped beneath the metro bench for something of half an hour. That was before an angry elderly woman with a parasol came wandering in and, screeching like a baby, proceeded to wollop the both of the with the handle of her ancient pink imitation-umbrella, sending them flying out the door in hysterics and various states of half-dressed-ness.

Still doubled over in laughter, they watched the lights of the line flicker off down the tracks and they fell to pieces on the concrete slab of a platform, crying and shrieking and laughing and dreading the moment in which a cell phone would probably ring and a sweet girl would call and a worried girl would cry and someone somewhere would be concerned. They dreaded it and they realized it and they both stopped laughing. And they both realized the magnitude of what they had and hadn't done.

Were they cheaters? Yes. Were they lovers? No.

"What would you call what we just had?" Sora asked. Cloud sat up, elbows on his knees and serious face in place. When he didn't say anything, Sora provided himself with: "I'd say we had brain-sex. Whaddya think?"

"Brain-sex it is."

"It's nothing."

"Not anything at all."

And each was certain that they would never see the other again. And each ended the evening perfectly alone, feeling perfectly godawful for not being sick of their respective others and not being sick of each other and not having enough grit to do what it took to hate and be hated.

The nice ones are always the big losers.

And the big losers came to regard The Bambino as a sort of torture chamber they put themselves through every now and again, subconsciously trying to catch another glimpse of blue or blonde or brownie brown within the crowd. But there was never anything and never any indication-- _ "Hey Kairi, uh... Is that friend of yours going? What was her name... Aerith?" "Uh. No-oo, I don't think so. Why?" "Nothing! She just seems nice is all." "Well, she is...?"_

x x x

They met like that some months later in the lows of winter, each at one end of the metro platform. Sora faced east, Cloud faced west. And they most certainly would not have seen each other-- would not even have probably had a passing thought of the other-- had they not heard the earnest conversation between a young couple standing somewhere in the middle. Eager and loud, it was obvious that they were new enough to each other to not yet be jaded and sick and tired of it all.

"Irvy! Lookit this! There's an article about this coyote getting on a train! _ Look! _ They have a picture and _ev_erything! It's so cu--!"

Sora looked left. Cloud looked right. Their eyes locked on the couple, then moved upwards a few inches and clashed brutally right over the happy little lovers' heads.

Everything that you need to know about someone is painfully obvious within the first few moments of meeting them. The force with which they slam you against the seat, the strain with which they reach for your mouth, and the tenor in their voice when they say "_Anything_" in that impossible sort of way (if they even manage to say _anything_ at all), all build up to the great climax of "Hey there, fucker, my name is--!" And, reveling in the limelight of such a meeting, each and every person is apt to forget to put up some wall somewhere and contain a part of themselves they'd rather be kept in reserve.

Upon the second meeting, the walls are up, the case is closed, and each party has already formed a mental image of the other in their mind.

Sora: early twenties, energetic, spoiled, outgoing, discontent.

Cloud: mid to late twenties, laid-back, rough around the edges, distant, discontent.

Sora opened his mouth to say something-- "_Anything_."-- but was distracted as the line pulled up, as the doors slid open, as the passengers departed and the car awaited him alone. In one terrified movement abrupt enough to nearly snap his neck, he looked back for Cloud and was greeted with a blank-- an empty space where the man had once stood. Hands in his pockets-- mid to late twenties, laid-back, rough around the edges, distant, discontent.

And discontent again when he was within his line and Sora was within his and the two crossed paths _exactly_ for all of a split second as one was pulled north and the other pulled south.

And Sora thought. He thought of what he would have liked to say.

_"Hey--!"_

"Hi, my name is Sora and my mother is fifty-nine years old and reasonably pretty for her age, but my father used to call her his ugly duckling and she used to laugh it off all the time and I was always so upset about it-- I thought if that was what love was than I didn't want any part of it, and really, I don't want any part of it now because I'm terrified I'll be calling my girlfriend my ugly duckling in twenty more years. I think about you sometimes, but I probably think about that coyote more than I think about you, just because watching that coyote die was pretty scarring, but after I think about the coyote, I sometimes end up thinking about you and I sometimes end up thinking that maybe that was scarring, too, and maybe I _should_ have met you twelve years ago and I should have said we _could_ see each other again because you're discontent and I'm discontent and people who have things in common should talk with one another because that's what people do when they're meeting-- and really, I _am_ meeting you, because I only just now realized that last time--

"--_last time_ I never introduced myself and no one did it for me. And you still don't have a clue who I am. So yeah. Hi. I'm Sora."

Sora smiled. _Yeah_, he thought. _That's what I would have liked to say to him._

(x) end (x)


End file.
